Officials to take up slew of measures to contain dog menace in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: In the wake of last week’s incident at Amberpet where a four-year-old boy died after being attacked by a pack of street dogs, MA&UD special chief secretary Arvind Kumar has directed officials to take steps to control stray dog menace and dog bites.

Among a host of measures to achieve the aim is installing water bowls for the strays, setting up billboards on do’s and don’ts for the people highlighting appropriate behaviour with street dogs and instructions to the GHMC staff to take up animal birth control (ABC) measures.

Steps are to be taken to discourage the tendency of non-vegetarian shops, function halls, hotels and hostels to throw non-vegetarian, especially uncooked. Action would be initiated against those found disposing of their garbage in public places.

Arvind Kumar called for enhancing the current capacity of conducting ABC and increasing the number of dog catching teams and vehicles to attend to complaints on a priority basis.

Officials were directed to take up a programme in schools to educate children about the appropriate behaviour protocols with stray dogs in the next one month. A quick assessment and identification of high density stray dog areas would be taken up involving residential welfare associations and slum and town level federations.

The sanitation staff, including outsourcing staff, would be trained to deal with street dogs. The GHMC has been asked to contact RWAs, slum and town level federations and create awareness about feeding street dogs and reporting rogue street dogs roaming in colonies.

The action plan to check street dog menace includes:

> Wide publicity to helpline 040-21111111 and My GHMC App to report aggressive or unsterilized dogs

> Use services of self-help groups and sanitation staff to promote awareness about street dogs’ behaviour

> Distribution of pamphlets in schools detailing do’s and don’ts while dealing with street dogs

> Promoting adoption of street dogs